Cleaning out the attic today, and I ran into a bag full of old mark style wrestling magazines from the late 80s thru late 90s. While there were a lot of interesting things in light of the years since they were written (an old Inside Wrestling with an "Eddie Ellner" column that mentioned Darren Aronofsky a couple of years before Pi or Requiem For A Dream ever came out shocked me), but this little tidbit made me think about how wrestling's future could have been different.

Wrestling World, March 1994, P. 68

Speaking of Tony Atlas, the song of his former tag-team partner, Rocky Johnson, is now a collegiate football star! Dwayne Johnson is a star defensive tackle for the sixth-rated University of Miami and is the strongest player on the squad, able to bench-press 435 and squat-lift 450.

"When I was a kid, I was planning to go to college, but it wasn't necessarily for football," Dwayne said recently. "I thought about following in my father's footsteps and going into professional wrestling."

"I plan on taking football as far as I can," he continued. " If football doesn't work out, I'll go right into wrestling. It's in my blood."

If he does eventually end up in the squared circle, what ring name would he use? "I'd probably call myself 'The Destroyer,'" he replied. In the meantime he'll continue to destroy opponents on the gridiron!

So would Dwayne "The Destroyer" Johnson be the Most Electrifying Man in Sports Entertainment? Would the new Mummy sequel star The Destroyer? I just thought it funny to consider such things. The difference a name can make :)

THe name DOES make a difference. Imagine if his name was Cleophus Johnson! I don't even wanna THINK about some of the nicknames to go with that one.

There are no facts-only observational postulates in an endlessly regenerative hodgepodge of predictions. Consensus reality requires a fixed frame of reference. In a multilevel, infinite universe, there can be no fixity; thus, no absolute consensus reality. In a relativistic universe, it appears impossible to test the reliability of any expert by requiring him to agree with another expert. Both can be correct, each in his own inertial system.

Originally posted by Tragic1I think the fact that his real name is Dwayne shows the difference a name could make.

"Dwayne is gonna lay the smack down on your monkey ass!"

or JR yelling "DWAYNE BOTTOM! DWAYNE BOTTOM!" when he hits his move.

If he went by a name other than The Rock, his character would be different. He could have been just as successful, but w/o "candy ass" or his other phrases. Only when you get into lame, chessy names like "The Ringmaster" (or "The Destroyer" I guess) would the name be inhibitive. But I think simply going by Dwayne Johnson (or maybe a different last name) wouldn't have stopped him from being where he is now.